


i know youre weary

by Freezer7



Category: Greenwarden - Elliot Z.
Genre: Angst, Canon-Typical Behavior, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, POV Second Person, Panic Attacks, Paranoia, Trans Male Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-08
Updated: 2020-12-08
Packaged: 2021-03-10 04:00:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,140
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27964214
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Freezer7/pseuds/Freezer7
Summary: You don’t really know how long it's been since you slammed the bathroom door and threw the latch. You’ve been calm for a good while now, having rode the panic attack out to exhaustion.Calm might be an exaggeration.You can’t unlock the door.
Relationships: Bautista/Male Tracker, Marc Bautista/Tracker
Comments: 2
Kudos: 31





	i know youre weary

**Author's Note:**

> This one goes out to my pals and gals that have locked themselves in a room because when faced with fight or flight, our brains chose freeze.   
> tw for panic attacks, mild paranoia, and the works!

You don’t really know how long it's been since you slammed the bathroom door and threw the latch. You’ve been calm for a good while now, having rode the panic attack out to exhaustion. 

Calm might be an exaggeration. 

You can’t unlock the door. 

The lock works fine. The door works fine. Probably. But you can’t will yourself into standing, into walking, into flipping the lock, into turning the knob. Can’t will yourself to even look away from the doorknob. Your vision blurs with how long your eyes have been scrutinizing the metal. Waiting for any sign of it turning. 

So you lean slouched against the shower wall, watching the doorknob, unable to move. The stall wall is cold and hard against your back, and your ass aches from the unyielding floor. Your legs are tucked up against your chest, knife gripped with white-knuckled fingers. 

Your breath comes even. 

It's the only mark of time passing. Steady inhale, steady exhale. 

You don’t even really know what set you off this time. A picture in the newspaper? A phrase on the radio? Your own passing thought? A lifetime of accumulated stress? 

Bautista had left to go grab takeout. You’d stayed behind to go over case documents, and to avoid having to deal with the stress of leaving the motel. The irony isn’t lost on you.

Keys jangle outside the room. Your breath catches in your throat. Your pulse skyrockets. The motel door opens. Your body tenses somehow even further than it had. Your already overworked adrenal glands somehow manage to flood your system with adrenaline. Your fingers are numb, a combination of how tight your grip is, how shallowly and quickly you’re breathing.

“Hey, sorry I took so long. Line was long.”

It’s Bautista. Of course it’s Bautista.

You can’t unfreeze. Your heart pounds so hard you can feel it in every fucking vein. Sweat beads down your back. The front door closes, and Bautista’s footsteps progress into the main area. Plastic bags rustle, then stop. 

“Lewis?” Bautista calls.

_ Say something, fucking say something,  _ you think, viciously. 

“Shit.” It's quiet, spoken under Bautista’s breath. Footsteps back to the door, stopping outside the bathroom. He calls your name again, gentler, knocking softly. 

You still can’t move. Can only clutch the knife. You can hardly even fucking breathe, now. 

“You alright?” Bautista sounds a little panicked, now. You know it doesn’t look good, being locked in the bathroom, unresponsive.  _ Fucking say something before he breaks down the door.  _

“No.” You manage to gasp. The word breaks the dam, and your breath comes too fast again.  _ Why can’t I just go open the fucking door? _

“Alright. Alright.” Bautista says, almost to himself, “can you open the door for me?”

“No!” You say, too fast. Your voice hitches around the word.  _ God please don’t start crying _ . Bautista curses under his breath again. 

“Hey, it's just me, alright? What’s going on?”

“I- I can’t open the door,” You say, fucking uselessly. It’s only because Bautista has found you like this before that he probably isn’t picturing you bleeding out on the tile. 

“I’m going to pick the lock, alright?” He says decisively, and then he’s off to dig through your bag,  _ and you can’t think about what else he might find in your bag, _ for your lockpicking kit. 

You can’t give a response, jaw refusing to unclamp. The pick set clinks as Bautista begins to work the lock. The doorknob is turning to open the door less than a minute later, swinging open to reveal Bautista kneeling on the other side. 

The tension you were so bound in breaks in an instant. Your shoulders fall, and the knife slips from your fingers and onto the floor. Just Bautista. You  _ knew  _ it was just Bautista. And you still couldn’t open the fucking door. 

“Can I come in?” He asks, softly. You hate yourself for how he eyes the knife on the floor.  _ Like he doesn’t know if you’d hurt him _ . 

“Yeah,” you reply raggedly, bringing your hands up to pull fingers through your sweaty, tangled curls. 

He joins you in the shower stall, and you don’t miss the way he pockets the knife. A hesitant arm curls around your shoulders, and when you don’t respond, it draws you into Bautista’s side. You sit like that for a few minutes. Bautista is letting you collect yourself, get your breathing back under control. After you are no longer hyperventilating, the embarrassment starts to set in. 

“Fuck.” You say simply. Bautista squeezes his arm around you a little tighter.

“Fuck.” He agrees. 

This isn’t the first, second, or even third time he’s opened the door like this for you, but you still don’t know how to behave, after. The first time, you’d gotten pissed out of hand, and stormed out of the hotel. Then it happened again, and again, and now you sit in shower stalls with Bautista at least once a month. 

It hasn’t gotten any less embarrassing, though. You’re a grown ass man who needs saving from locked bathroom doors on an almost semi regular basis. Bautista doesn’t try to talk to you about it, either to tease or to comfort, which you’re pathetically grateful for. 

Ten minutes of floor sitting later, Bautista is ushering you into the main area of the motel room, sitting you on the edge of the bed, and placing a box of cooling plain rice into your hands. You eat the rice mechanically. Everything feels heavy, and it's an effort to get down enough rice so Bautista won’t give you a look when you stow it in the minifridge. 

After finishing a reasonable amount of rice, the dried sweat on your skin begins to feel uncomfortable. Your clothes stick to your skin awkwardly, and there's little in the world that sounds more appealing than a hot shower right now. Bautista must pick up on it, because he stands and stretches. 

“Are you going to be alright tonight?” He asks, making a vague motion that you translate into meaning he is going to his own room next door. You nod, and stand up to start gathering your things to shower. Bautista starts to make for the door when you speak up. 

“Hey.” You start, waiting for Bautista to pause before continuing, “Thanks.”

He looks back at you, and you feel pinned beneath his gaze. He takes you in, leaning with his hand resting on the door frame. He looks away, looks back. In the shitty motel lighting, his eyes almost look wet. 

“You’re welcome.” Bautista finally says, pushing off from the doorframe with a small knock of his knuckles against the wood. Then he’s out of the room, leaving you standing in the small hallway, clutching your towel and sleep clothes.

In all the times you’ve done this, you hadn’t ever thanked him before.

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on tumblr at theodoresart!


End file.
